HEALTH AS A HUMAN RIGHT: A CALL FOR ACTION

The Millennium Development Goals were set forth by the international community with the acknowledgement that the highest attainable standard of health is a human right, and that no human being should be denied the benefits of humankind’s ability to prevent and treat diseases and remove other causes of ill health¹ . Recognizing that health is a human right and the foundation for a sustainable social, economic and human development, G8 countries made the promise to attain the Millennium Development Goals by the target date of 2015.

Although the level of resources contributed by the global community has increased substantially in the past decade, the prospects for achieving the Millennium Development Goals are seriously off track. Bold action is necessary to address the current realities of health including:

• 5 million people die every year from HIV and AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
• Of the 33.2 million people with HIV and AIDS, only 1 in 4 people who need HIV medicines to stay alive have access to them, whilst just 1 in 5 have access to basic prevention service;
• 9.7 million children under the age of 5 die each year from preventable and curable disease
• Due to the inadequate distribution of health workers and the insufficient investment for health systems, at least fifty-seven countries, most of them in Africa and Asia, face a severe health workforce crisis with a global shortage of at least 4,250,000 health workers;
• Every minute, a women dies of pregnancy-related causes, without the statistics of the mortality rate barely changing in the past 20 years.

The burden of all these facts falls disproportionately on people living in developing countries.
These figures show that the world, especially the G8 countries, must do much more than making more promises and developing new initiatives, and once and for all to follow up on existing commitments by taking concrete financial and political action needed to fulfill them.
Thus, we the G8 civil society country representatives, with a united voice, put forth this declaration to the representatives at the G8 Health Experts meeting on April 9-10, who we believe have the opportunity to shape the outcome of global health policy.
We call upon you to be the voice of action to ensure the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals and other health-related initiatives and promises agreed upon by all of the G8 countries. We call upon you to listen to the voice of civil society and ensure that the following be included in the final communiqué issued to the governments of the G8 countries:

• For the G8 to reconfirm its commitment towards achieving Universal Access to HIV prevention,treatment, care and support by 2010 by, agreeing to a long-term funding plan, paying their fair share of the cost, and building on the German initiative for monitoring and evaluating this commitment;
• For full resource mobilization to attain the goal of Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis to half the number of TB related deaths by 2015 with improvement of DOTS and promotion of MDR, XDR-TB, TB/HIV co-infection control;
• For the full funding of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has created a dramatic turn-around in the response to HIV and AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, but faces the shortage of 5-8 billion USD of its resource needs from 2008-2010;
• For the G8 should acknowledge that concerns about sustainability need to be addressed at international level rather than at national level (long term predictable aid for global health), and demand flexibility from the IMF;
• For the full implementation of the Agenda for Global Action, adopted by the First Global Forum on Human Resources for Health in Kampala, Uganda, including sufficient funding and for the G8 to stop and reverse the drainage of health workers from developing countries;
• For the development or strengthening of and the full funding for inclusive, human rights-based, and technically sound national plans for health system strengthening;
• For the full funding, strengthening and integration of maternal and child health in national and international health strategies to decrease maternal and child mortality rates;
• For recommitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and the publishing of firm and transparent plan of action and timetables, which show “who will pay how much, when” to ensure the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.
• For fulfilling their commitment made in Gleneagles to promote the elimination of user fees and to support the implementation of free access to basic health care for the poor, particularly women and under five, where a country chooses to provide it.

We all bear responsibility in ensuring all human beings can enjoy their right to health.

Signatures

Global Union AIDS Programme, Global
Action Aid International , Global
Physicians for Human Rights, Global
Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, Global
World AIDS Campaign, Global
Gestos- Soropositividade, Comunicação e Gênero, Brazil
Osservatorio Italiano sull'Azione Globale contro l'AIDS, Italy
Global Health Committee, Japan 2008 G8 Summit NGO Forum, Japan2
Africa Japan Forum, Japan
Japan AIDS and Society Association, Japan
Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, Sothern Africa
Stop AIDS Campaign, UK
2 Japan 2008 G8 Summit NGO Forum consists of the following 15 NGOs; Africa Japan Forum(AJF), Health and Development Services (HANDS),
International AIDS Vaccine Initiative Japan Focal Point (IAVI), Japan AIDS and Society Association (JASA), Japan Anti-Tuberculosis Association
(JATA), Japan Foundation for AIDS Prevention (JFAP), Japan Foundation for International Cooperation in Family Planning (JOICFP), Medecins du
Monde Japon, OXFAM Japan, Plan Japan, Results Japan, Services for Health in Asian and African regions (SHARE), Space Allies, Women and
Health Network Japan, World Vision Japan

^{1 Health as a Human Right was acknowledged by the international community sixty years ago with the adoption of the World Health Organization’s Constitution, which was agreed upon that “…the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being…”}

^{Thirty years later with the Declaration of Alma-Ata reaffirmed that health “is a fundamental human right and that the attainment of the highest possible level of health is a most important world-wide social goal whose realization requires the action of many other social and economic sectors in addition to the health sector.” These documents gave rise to actual goals, such as the Millennium Development Goals, which addresses health as an essential element in achieving sustainable social, economic and human development.}